ELECTRONIC APPARATUS
An electronic apparatus, that includes a chassis that comes with a keyboard and an electronic board, further includes: at least one boss protruding from an inner face of the chassis into a hole or a cutout in the keyboard; at least one bracket fastened to the at least one boss together with the keyboard with a screw; and at least one stud on a face of the bracket opposite to a face facing the keyboard. The electronic board is fixed to the at least one stud with a screw.
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This application claims priority to Japanese Patent Application No. 2022-79819 filed on May 13, 2022, the contents of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
TECHNICAL FIELDThe present invention relates to an electronic apparatus including a chassis that comes with a keyboard and an electronic board.
BACKGROUNDAn electronic apparatus such as a laptop PC includes a main body chassis and a display chassis that are rotatably connected via a hinge. The main body chassis has a keyboard with the keys exposed on the surface and an electronic board housed inside, and the keyboard and the electronic board are often stacked (see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2021-089481). Some space is kept between the end of the keyboard and the edge of the main body chassis. The main body chassis therefore can have a boss in this internal space to support the electronic board.
Due to a demand for compact laptop PCs, consideration is being given to narrowing the space between the end of the keyboard and the edge of the main body chassis. However, narrowing this space makes it difficult to place the boss as described above.
SUMMARYOne or more embodiments of the present invention provide an electronic apparatus capable of supporting an electronic board regardless of the layout of the chassis and keyboard.
An electronic apparatus according to one or more embodiments of the present invention includes a chassis that comes with a keyboard and an electronic board, and the electronic apparatus includes: a boss protruding from an inner face of the chassis into a hole or a cutout in the keyboard; a bracket fastened to the boss together with the keyboard with a screw; and a stud on a face of the bracket opposite to a face facing the keyboard. The electronic board is fixed to the stud with a screw.
The above-described aspects of the present invention has a bracket fastened to a boss together with a keyboard with a screw, and the electronic board is fixed with a screw to a stud on the face of the bracket on the opposite of the face facing the keyboard. This configuration supports the electronic board regardless of the layout of the chassis and keyboard.
The following describes an electronic apparatus according to one or more embodiments of the present invention in details, with reference to the drawings. The present invention is not limited to the following embodiments.
The main body chassis 12 is a flat box. For the main body chassis 12, the bottom in
The main body chassis 12 has an upper cover member 20 defining the top surface 12a and a lower cover member 21 (see
The display chassis 14 is a thin, flat box. The display 18 is placed on the front face 14a of the display chassis 14. The display chassis 14 has a back cover member 28 that defines the back surface 14b. The front, rear, left, and right side faces 14c of the display chassis 14 are walls rising from the four peripheral portions of the back cover member 28. For instance, the display 18 includes an organic light emitting diode (OLED) or liquid crystal. The display 18 may be of a touch panel type. The display chassis 14 has the hinge 16 attached to the bottom side face 14d in
The main body chassis 12 internally houses the motherboard 26, which is an electronic board, various electronic components such as a battery device 32 and antenna device, and a thermal module such as a heat spreader. To the motherboard 26, a solid state drive (SSD) 34, a wireless module 36, and other components are fixed with screws BO. On the motherboard, electronic elements such as a CPU 38 and memory are mounted. The CPU 38 controls the electronic apparatus 10.
Also inside the main body chassis 12, the keyboard 24 spans almost the entire width in the horizontal direction. The horizontal length of the motherboard 26 is also almost the same as that of the keyboard 24, and the motherboard 26 and the keyboard 24 are stacked. The motherboard 26 is fastened with eight distributed screws B1. The keyboard 24 is fastened with many screws B2.
The brackets 40 and 42 are placed at both ends of the keyboard 24 in the horizontal direction, and the bracket 44 is placed at a substantially center front. The bracket 40 is located near the right end, and the bracket 42 is located near the left end. These brackets 40, 42, and 44 are metal plates.
The parallel sections 40a, 40b, and 40c each have a stud 48 near their ends. That is, the bracket 40 has five screw holes 46 and three studs 48. Each stud 48 has a slightly large-diameter mount 48a and a convex 48b slightly protruding from the mount 48a. The convex 48b is smaller in diameter than the mount 48a, for example, having a diameter of about ½. Each stud 48 has an internal-threaded portion 48c in the center from the convex 48b to the mount 48a. Each mount 48a is firmly fixed to the bracket 40 by welding or other means. The three studs 48 are aligned substantially linearly. A “stud” in the present application is basically a convex member that supports a supported member in combination with a screw, and has an internal-threaded portion formed in advance for fastening with a screw. A stud is basically made of metal and is fixed to a bracket or others.
The parallel section 40a has a positioning hole 50a, and the parallel section 40b has a positioning hole 50b. The positioning hole 50a is circular, and the positioning hole 50b is a slot slightly elongated in the front-rear direction. The positioning holes 50a, 50b are small. The protrusion 40g has a spacer 52 substantially in the center. The parallel section 40a comes with a light-shielding wall 54 near the stud 48.
The major piece 42a has positioning holes 50a and 50b in two small portions protruding in the opposite direction of the protruding pieces 42b and 42c. The protruding piece 42c has a spacer 52 near the end. The screw holes 46, studs 48, positioning holes 50a, 50b, and spacer 52 in the bracket 42 are the same as those in the bracket 40.
Bosses 56 protrude from the inner face 20a of the upper cover member 20 into the holes 24c and the cutouts 24d. The bosses 56 are integrally molded with the upper cover member 20. The bosses 56 are slightly lower than baseplate 24a. Each boss 56 has a small plan view area and is located at a position corresponding to a key gap 24g (see
The base 60 constitutes part of the inner face 20a of the upper cover member 20. A thin positioning pin 62 protrudes from the base 60. The positioning pin 62 is inserted into the positioning hole 50b of the bracket 40 with almost no gap in the horizontal direction to position the bracket 40. The corresponding positioning pin 62 protruding from the inner face of the upper cover member 20 is inserted also into the positioning hole 50a (see
The above describes the way of fixing the keyboard 24 and the motherboard 26 mainly by way of the bracket 40 on the right. The bracket 42 on the left has a similar basic configuration to the bracket 40 other than that it is different only in the arrangement, shape, and the number of screw holes 46 and studs 48, and the detailed description is omitted. The bracket 44 also has substantially the same configuration, and the detailed description is omitted.
The spacers 52 on the brackets 40 and 42 are placed under the screws B0 (see
As can be seen from a comparison between
The user presses the key tops 24f of the keyboard 24, meaning it is desirable that the keyboard 24 is evenly fixed over almost the entire surface. To this end, the keyboard 24 is secured with many bosses 56 that are distributed over the upper cover member 20. Many bosses 56 are used, meaning the supporting strength required for each boss is small, so that a small boss suffices, which corresponds to the space of the key gap 24g (see
In contrast, the motherboard 26 may be removed for maintenance or other purposes, and for work convenience, it is desirable to have a small number of fixing points. The motherboard 26 therefore has considerably fewer studs 48, which are the fixing points for the keyboard 24, than the bosses 56. The number of fixing points is small, so that each stud 48 corresponds to the screw B1 having a larger nominal diameter than the screws B2 and B3 corresponding to the bosses 56. The studs 48 have an internal-threaded portion 48c, and thus are suitable for repeated screwing.
Preferably, the motherboard 26 is fixed at the left and right ends for stabilization. In the electronic apparatus 10, the gap G (see
The key tops 24f (see
Thus, the electronic apparatus 10 has the brackets 40, 42, 44 that are fastened to the bosses 56 together with the keyboard 24 with the screws B2, B3, and the motherboard 26 is fixed with the screws B1 to the studs 48 on the faces of the brackets 40, 42, and 44 on the opposite of the faces facing the keyboard 24. This allows the motherboard 26 to be supported regardless of the layout of the side walls 12c of the main body chassis 12 and the keyboard 24.
The brackets 40 and 42 are placed at both ends of the keyboard 24 in the horizontal direction, thus stabilizing the motherboard 26. The bracket 40 has five fixing points with the bosses 56, which is more than the three points with the studs 48. The bracket 42 has six fixing points with the bosses 56, which is more than the two points with the studs 48. In this way, the brackets 40 and 42 support the motherboard 26 with the studs 48 corresponding to the screws B1 having a large nominal diameter, while they are fixed to the main body chassis 12 with the larger number of bosses 56 corresponding to the screws B2 and B3 having a small nominal diameter, thus achieving balance.
The brackets 40 and 42 are each supported to the bosses 56 at three locations along the side wall 12c of the main body chassis 12, and the bosses 56 at these three locations protrude inside the cutouts 24d of the keyboard 24. In contrast, the other bosses 56 supporting the brackets 40, 42 are at a moderate distance from the side walls 12c and protrude into the interior of the holes 24c in the keyboard 24. In this way, the brackets 40, 42 are supported with a plurality of appropriately spaced bosses 56, and are stable.
The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and can be modified freely without deviating from the scope of the present invention.
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS
-
- 10 electronic apparatus
- 12 main body chassis
- 20 upper cover member
- 20a inner face
- 24 keyboard
- 24a baseplate
- 24c hole
- 24d cutout
- 24f key top
- 24g key gap
- 40, 42, 44 bracket
- 46 screw hole
- 48 stud
- 48c internal-threaded portion
- 50a, 50b positioning hole
- 56 boss
- 62 positioning pin
- B1, B1, B2, B3 screw
Claims
1. An electronic apparatus comprising:
- a chassis that comes with a keyboard and an electronic board;
- at least one boss protruding from an inner face of the chassis into a hole or a cutout in the keyboard;
- at least one bracket fastened to the at least one boss together with the keyboard with a screw; and
- at least one stud on a face of the bracket opposite to a face facing the keyboard, wherein
- the electronic board being fixed to the at least one stud with a screw.
2. The electronic apparatus according to claim 1, wherein
- the at least one bracket includes brackets disposed at both ends of the keyboard in a longitudinal direction of the keyboard.
3. The electronic apparatus according to claim 1, wherein
- a gap from an end of the keyboard to a corresponding edge of the chassis is smaller than an outside diameter of the at least one stud.
4. The electronic apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:
- a positioning pin protruding from the inner face of the chassis in a gap from the end of the keyboard to the corresponding edge of the housing, wherein
- the positioning pin is inserted into a positioning hole in the at least one bracket.
5. The electronic apparatus according to claim 1, wherein
- a screw corresponding to the at least one stud has a larger nominal diameter than a screw corresponding to the at least one boss, and
- the at least one bracket has more fixing points with the at least one bosses than with the at least one studs.
Type: Application
Filed: Mar 29, 2023
Publication Date: Nov 16, 2023
Applicant: Lenovo (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. (Singapore)
Inventors: Hiroaki Kinoshita (Kanagawa), Tetsuya Sano (Kanagawa), Masaaki Bandoh (Kanagawa)
Application Number: 18/191,875